Excursion Recap Italy: Dylan Homer and Thomas Whitmire

An excursion is defined as a deviation from a regular path or pattern, and every late February, our school proves why that deviation is needed. For two weeks, classrooms are traded for real world experiences which can range from jogging the BeltLine to stepping foot inside the Coliseum. Each trip leads somewhere different and offers every student an unforgettable experience, but we often don’t hear those stories or multiples from every excursion. Until now, in this first fully collaborative article, students will share their individual experiences and reflect on what they have learned. 

Italy: Dylan Homer and Thomas Whitmire

The Italy excursion opened up the door to Italian cuisine and culture, visiting places such as Rome, Sorrento, the Amalfi Coast, Capri, Naples, and the Vatican City. Dylan begins by sharing: to start our journey in Italy we landed in Rome and had the opportunity to create and taste gelato. We specifically made banana gelato, but learned that it takes a very long time in order to create the dish. We later visited the Vatican, which is one of the most beautiful places and learned the history of the church and previous Popes. To go along with our crafting of Gelato, we also had the opportunity to make our own Tiramisu and Pizza nearby. Overall, for the meals in Rome, we ate bruschetta, pasta, and pizza– all prepared with fresh ingredients making the meals unforgettable. This would be the end of our time in Rome, but we would go on to visit many more places and would learn many more things during our time in Italy. 

Thomas adds: after visiting Rome and Vatican City, we drove southwest towards Naples, which is a large city home to around 909,000 people. Naples is the birthplace of the Magharita Pizza, which resembles the Italian flag accompanied with mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil. We spent most of our time in Sorrento and the surrounding small cities. Additionally, in one area around the coast, an island named Capri, we learned about how it is a major hub for celebrities. Across the world, celebrities are drawn in by the various luxurious stores like Gucci and Chanel. While visiting the Amalfi Coast, later that day, we learned about how the city was built vertically up due to the tall hills that are present on the coast. The day after visiting Capri and the Amalfi Coast, we visited a buffalo farm where mozzarella cheese is made. While there, we learned how two different kinds of mozzarella are made which are braided and Caciocavallo cheese. Both are made by mixing the cheese mixture with warm and cold water which has an enzyme that begins building up the cheese. We learned about how they milk the buffalo in which they use Mozart music to relax them in the morning, when they are milked, for making mozzarella cheese and how they have massage stations to also relax them further. 

That same day, we visited ruins at Paestum where we learned about how Romans built temples above the ruins originally made by Greeks, adding contrast between the two architecture techniques. That night, we made gnocchi which is a potato based pasta made with potatoes, eggs, and flour. You mix the egg with the potato before incorporating the flour and rolling up to cut before cooking the gnocchi. We also visited Pompeii which was an ancient city known for maritime trade that was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. In modern times, the city is extremely far from the coast, due to ground being created from the eruption. Our time in the city wrapped up with the cleaning of many ancient roads, ancient brothels, and spas that were used in the city before it was destroyed.